Queens Hospitals To Boost Care For Sexual Assault Survivors

QUEENS, NY — Queens hospitals will more than double the number of nurses trained specifically to aid survivors of sexual assault and abuse.

Under an initiative by Acting Queens Borough President Sharon Lee, Queens hospitals will raise their number of certified sexual assault nurse examiners to 54 by September 2021.

Queens hospitals employ just 26 registered nurses with the specialized, 40-hour training, which teaches nurses how to perform trauma-informed forensic exams on survivors of sexual assault.

Five of the borough's nine hospitals have no nurses with the certification, according to a news release from the Queens Borough President's Office.

The initiative will also enable hospitals to provide trauma-informed care across 14 languages, up from the four languages spoken by the current cohort of sexual assault nurse examiners.

Nurses slated to complete the training are proficient or fluent in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Korean, Nepali, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish and Urdu.

“Specialized, sensitive forensic care can make all the difference in the immediate aftermath of rape and/or sexual assault, not just in the ultimate pursuit of justice but in the survivor’s own agency and power,” Lee said in a written statement.

But two Queens hospitals will still not have any certified sexual assault nurse examiners: Flushing Hospital Medical Center and Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.

A spokesperson for the two hospitals did not respond to requests for comment.